Innovation Competition Grows to Include Northern Kentucky

The hugely successful Cincinnati Innovates contest, which distributed more than $50,000 to budding entrepreneurs and inventors with new business ideas last year, is making a big step across the river.

This year the Northern Kentucky Commercialization Award, which is a large new prize, will be devoted to rewarding resourcefulness from Cincinnati’s south banks. The winner, deemed by a judging panel to be the most outstanding business idea or invention, will walk away with $10,000 thanks to funding sponsorship from the Northern Kentucky eZone, Tri-ED, Vision 2015 and a Covington-based medical investment firm bioLogic.

The prize will be one of the largest handed out in this year’s contest.

“I’m really looking forward to what comes of it,” says Vision 2015 President Bill Scheyer, one of the driving forces behind the institution of the prize.

He points out that in Cincinnati Innovates’ first year there were 273 overall entries. Sixteen came from Northern Kentucky even though the contest wasn’t marketed to the area’s residents.

One of the entries, the Ulcer Scale, submitted by eZone-based duo of Phil Gettinger and Amro Kamel, which helps diabetics avoid foot ulcers and the health hazards associated with the common problem, was one of the contests winners walking away with a $1,000 patent award.

“To get that number of entries, when the word really didn’t get out to Northern Kentucky entrepreneurs and innovators, was exciting. Northern Kentucky’s an untapped market for the contest. With the Entrepreneurship Center at NKU, the eZone and all the high-tech businesses here, Northern Kentucky is ripe with ideas, which I think we’re about to see.”

Elizabeth Edwards, the contest’s founder and organizer, agrees.

“We were a little surprised to get as (many) participation from Northern Kentucky as we did,” she says. Though most of the contest’s divisions were open to Kentucky residents, most of the focus went north of the river. As the entries poured in, it became increasingly clear, she adds, that Northern Kentucky was going to be a big player.

“We got a lot of entries from NKU and a ton of start-ups on that side of the river. The eZone was a supporting sponsor, and the discussion really started then with (eZone executive director) Casey Barach on how to bring Northern Kentucky into the contest,” she says. As those discussions continued, Tri-ED and Vision 2015 were brought into the loop, and the idea of a Northern Kentucky prize solidified.

The partnership was a natural fit.

“One of the planks of the 2015 Strategic Plan was that we are all charged with finding ways to stimulate innovation, to stimulate entrepreneurship,” explains Scheyer. “From the earliest discussions with Elizabeth (Edwards), it was clear that, given how successful Cincinnati Innovates was last year, in its first year, that we wanted to be involved. We wanted to be major partners because it was such a natural fit.”

With Tri-ED, Vision 2015 and the eZone on board, they then secured bioLogic as another sponsor. In the future, Scheyer says, the group is counting on more Northern Kentucky businesses to keep the ball rolling and, possibly, increase the value of the prize.

This year’s Cincinnati Innovates contest started accepting entries on May 1 for 10 awards totaling more than $80,000 in prize money. Entries will continue to be taken until Sept. 1, when judging begins. Later that month, the winners will be announced.

Judging from the variety of ideas the contest saw last year, organizers can’t wait to see what’s in store from 2010 entries.

Last year, winners ranged from web applications, like SAT test-prep Facebook application that took the $20,000 commercialization prize for LPK staffer Michael Bergman, to a new safer handcuff design and a $1 dollar fire extinguisher designed by UC student Noel Gauthier. Medical equipment innovations, like the Ulcer Scale and a safer and more comfortable central venous catheter for cancer patients, also signified a large part of the entries, says Edwards.

“It really is ‘come one, come all,'” she explains. “We’re looking for transformational technologies and business models. Anything that’s new, unique, exciting. Great pieces of technology. Great ideas, whether they’re shelf-ready or just at the concept stage. It’s all about innovation, which leads to job creation.”

SOURCES: Elizabeth Edwards/Founder, Cincinnati Innovates; Bill Scheyer/President, Vision 2015.